George Crum was born as George Speck in 1822 in Saratoga Lake, New York, the son of a Huron Native-American mother and an African-American father who worked as a jockey. He worked for a while as a mountain guide and trapper in the Adirondack Mountains in New York.

In 1853 he became the head chef at the Cary Moon’s Lake House in Lake Saratoga, New York and on one evening set out  preparing the evening dinner for the guests. He intended to make french fries but a guest complained that they were too thick. Annoyed, he prepared another batch and sliced the potatoes extremely thin. After deep frying them in oil he found them very thin and very crisp and after adding salt found that the guests loved them. George began preparing the potatoes this way and they would soon become known as potato chips.

In 1860 George decided to open his own restaurant on Malta Avenue in Saratoga Lake. He featured potato chips as appetizers on each table. The restaurant was very successful and operated for 30 years, closing in 1890. Unfortunately, he never patented the potato chip, nor sought to market them outside of his restaurant. A few years after he retired, however, potato chips were mass marketed by others and would eventually become a six billion dollar a year industry.

George Crum died in 1904 at the age of 92 and left behind the legacy of creating the greatest snack food of all time.

2 replies Rich says: August 21, 2013 at 7:00 am

the photo that you have up of george crum, just cannot be…

its a fake photo! someone started, hope it wasnt you.

do the math. he was 86yrs old when he died.

that photo is say when the person was 30+yrs old.

that would take us back to around 1860.

there were no photos of that quality, even at 1875!

even for that matter of ethnical people.

if you are to research early accounts of george crum, he was always reffered to as an native indian… from a neighboring trive in saratoga lakes area….